There was some much more that could have also been covered if time permitted in the programme considering our DD experience which is wrong with at least one of the schools mentioned and also alarming how, until hopefully now, much could not be said considering artistic director acts as judge, jury and executioner with the principle tending to have little authority of him (it was generally accepted and we were told by student in older year…don’t speak out as it could impact DD future). We did speak up and it impacted our DD selection to 6th form (she was originally on the list as we were told by dance teacher and house parent), but we had what we thought would be an open and transparent meeting with artistic director after which our DD was taken off the list. We had ongoing concerns throughout our DD time from year 6 which we always tried to raise, these included student bullying which was always brushed under the carpet with some house parents worse than useless, focus on artistic directors ‘favourites’, including international students, artistic director only attending dance class once in year but making judgement on DD future, select few students being told discreetly they were safe and not being accessed out to critical milestone years (year 8 and also 6th form) before official communication went out to all students, at assessment meeting dance teacher raising physical issues not just being weight related, general acceptance by academic teachers that dance was priority and academics not as equal importance. There is a lot of smoke and mirrors that exist, what they say they do is not a reality…just because you can say something on your website like anti bullying policy, mental health policy and support, etc doesn’t make it happen, your have to actually act on it and have it baked into your school culture. There also needs to be more scrutiny put onto Artistic Director (who are generally regarded as one who cant be questioned or come under scrutiny and everyone runs scared of them as they have some much power over your child’s future, lets not forget all AD’s have grown up through the dance system, their skills and approach have been made forged through the dance system and culture including all the things which are bad and therefore will continue with what they think is the right approach, with impunity.